American academia markets itself as progressive if not downright radical. For example, here’s a self-description by an assistant professor of Critical Identity Studies at Beloit College:

She intervenes in popular visual media like reality television to interrogate how time moves and for whom to catalog desire and identification as taxonomy and type. Her preferred gender pronouns are she/her.

Since the downfall of the Gestapo, nobody has treasured the verb “interrogate” as much as postmodern academics.

I especially appreciated the recognition of how a cosy Downtonie/Dumbledorian/Austenesque ethos/atmosphere is more highly sought after than ever, especially by the battalions of the Interrogating Woke.

It shows how leftist/academic desire is hopelessly adolescent, maybe even tweenie: they want to rebel, but within the safe confines of a well-structured story in which a satisfying, happy ending is a comfortable inevitability. I think they also love the way they can rip off the traditions of the west by reinterpreting and radicalizing them — or, if they can’t figure out a way to appropriate and reinvent and degrade the beauty which they’ve been handed as a gift, they exalt in simply destroying it.

Most academic ‘radicals’ have been coddled since birth; they have grown up in safe, pleasant environments in which their acting up has been laughed off and even praised (especially if they’re the right gender/sexuality/race), with consequences diffused or cushioned. They’re like puppies play-fighting on thick carpet. None of them really expect or desire a revolution; they want their bowls filled and their messes cleaned up on a very regular basis.

But the times are changing. The soft carpet of American ‘hegemony’ and prosperity that absorbed academia’s performative (to use one of their words) rebelliousness is wearing dangerously thin in many places.

But the times are changing. The soft carpet of American ‘hegemony’ and prosperity that absorbed academia’s performative (to use one of their words) rebelliousness is wearing dangerously thin in many places.

you've been to the finest school alright miss lonely\
but you only used to get juiced in it\

false eylashes\subtracted by people constantly torturing each other. with a melody purrig line of discriptive hollowness

the vagabond who's knocking at your door\
is standing in the clothes, that you once wore\
the carpet too is moving under you\
and it's all over now, baby blue

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“Interrogate” — yes, now part of the mindless chanting from the sensitivity-coercers. I was struck some years ago listing to Manning Marable, an early-on race-hustler at Columbia University visiting his home town of Dayton, Ohio, now a highly paid speaker at a local university complaining about how awful it was to be a Black Ivy League professor. The only thing I remember was when he growled:

“I am not here to celebrate diversity. I came to INTERROGATE diversity!” We all know who gets to be interrogated.

Wow. We are truly in the Kali Yuga now. I think those academic papers are quite serious, not parody or humor, but that is so hard to believe! It’s terrifying to think that these people are just itching to get their hands on political power, and they probably will do so, I guess. Were even the Red Guard or the Khmer Rouge this divorced from reality? I doubt it.

We are in the Cultural Marxist cognate with Stalin or Mao in classical Marxism. The same basic absolute insanity is presented as the New and Perfect Normal, and anyone who doubts will be hounded relentlessly.

Yes, the PC SJWs are itching to do to us what the Soviets did to Catholic and Orthodox priests and monks and then to the masses who either backed those religious or finally realized the horror and could no longer back it honestly.

The word interrogate is misused here. It comes from inter (“between”) and rogare (“ask”). In other words, some kind of back and forth is implied, as when interrogating a suspect. But a subject of study is inanimate, so there can be no back and forth. Therefore the word investigate is used (in + vestigare [to track or trace out]).

Leftists don’t want a proper discussion with give and take. I guess “interrogate” sounds so hardcore though, so to hell with the meanings of words. It’s just that, I thought knowledge was sort of where academics were supposed to derive their authority from? Nowadays they just want the authority without the knowledge or scholarship.

Most excellent column, read it all at Taki’s. Merely echoing what is said here by you and commentators…. So much of what goes on in universities is a money grubbing racket and scam. Off course these libs, minorities, gays, ultra-feminists and lefties want a paycheck!!! Useless subjects taught by useless professors. Of course they all want to get paid for the nonsensical “studies” (gender, black, queer and so on) they teach which are all half lefty advocacy anyways. And half the administrators (heavily female, feminist, gay, lesbian, minority) could be fired in an honest, rational, lower tuition university.

The US economy generally stinks but not in our universities. They have mastered the art of maintaining positive cash flow cha-ching! — That can be lavished on all kinds of useless “studies” courses and professors. Importing in all kinds of Asians, Chinese, other foreign students, gouging them on tuition, being an example.

Academic speak words like “intervene” and “interrogate” are not really markers of fascism (which is not to say that the modern academy is not fascistic in its desire to impose conformity). Rather they are used as jargon to make what they are doing seem scientific and professional and disguise the fact that they aren’t really doing anything of value. So if our professor told us that what she does is watch reality TV a lot and writes about how it makes her feel, we might not be willing to pay her for that job.

An important concept in the New Economy is “curation”. A desirable cheese shop, wine store, sock store, olive oil store, etc. doesn’t just put a random bunch of stuff on the shelf like some Wal-Mart and expect you to figure out what you really like. Rather they present you with a “curated collection” of socks, oils, etc. so that there are not any wrong choices – you get to chose from a few carefully chosen winners who will not disappoint you. The hard work has been done for you and you shouldn’t mind paying a few more pennies for the privilege.

Likewise, the modern university is supposed to present you, the student, with a curated collection of diverse students. There are blacks and Hispanics but not those violent ghetto types who will give you a fierce hangover like some rotgut bourbon. This is why Pablo “They” was so disappointing – Berkeley Hispanics aren’t supposed to be the kind who stab you. Likewise, this is where all the “Mattress Girl” anger comes from. The University has failed in its mission. You were supposed to be presented with a “curated” collection of men who would know that no means no (or that sometimes even yes means no under certain conditions) and they have failed in their curating mission. The admissions committee has failed to blackball a cad – what kind of country club is this?

“When an observer approaches a three-dimensional artwork, such as Xit by Ta’kwanzaa White-Coates, one must confront/interpret the piece as it exists, both in its own terms as well as the observer’s, within its own self-defined enclosed space. It must be interrogated as it exists in itself, and also as it represents/manifests both the artist’s and the interrogator’s perceived world-view. How does the piece reflect/challenge the observer’s felt sense of racial/gender identity, for example? How is it a reflection of societal norms? &c., &c.”

From The Artwork: Perception, Interrogation, Evaluation by Samantha Shoenfeld-Klein

………to interrogate how time moves and for whom to catalog desire and identification as taxonomy and type.

The ridiculous empty jumble of verbiage employed by these frauds seems to be instinctive, although it certainly serves a purpose: to mask their vacuousness. This is faux intellectualism for people who ought to be tending bar at Starbucks. It would be funny to write a meta-analysis of such nonsense: “Tossing the word salad: privilege and pretension as expressed by scholarly auto-fellation.”

The solution to this is to abolish tenure at State Universities and starve them of funds. Make them fire people and shed these useless eaters from their payrolls. At least we wouldn’t be subsidizing our own undermining. As an added bonus, it would be fun to see the resultant reserve army of unemployed X-studies professors driving down the salaries of those at private colleges. Turn the soft academic labor market into Thunderdome.

Academia is a citadel of the left. The culture war must be brought home to them……….there. Make them police their own speech. Make them fear for their livelihoods. Hell, bring in indian H1-Bs to take their jobs and make the professors train their replacements. State legislators can do it, if they dare.

The University is kept afloat by Disparate Impact doctrine. Since it is de facto illegal for me to select smarter applicants using an aptitude test, I have to rely on the second-best solution of having universities test for me, as part of a very large bundle of services.

Interesting column, though I’m not sure that I agree with the premise. My personal sense (and this post is really personal impressions-I have no real sense that it represents a societal wide shift-though it might) is that college really has changed.

I’d say, to simplify, that there were three groups of kids that went to college: those for job improvement (credentials), those with intellectual curiosity (the old school historian/philosopher/english major/etc), and those who want to change society (perhaps epitomized by 60′s radicals).

I went to college in the 80′s, and then graduate school. I was genuinely in the second group: I wanted to read/learn because I wanted to read/learn.

There was a tension at that time between me and the third group (really between conservative and liberals, but they were represented by the 2nd and 3rd group in this telling). But I, and other students like me, were a part of the university.

I don’t think that is the case today. I have no doubt that I have opinions that would get me fired as a teaching/graduate assistant today. Polite disagreement doesn’t seem to even be possible.

And as a result, I suspect that the second group really doesn’t exist any more. There are plenty in the first group: college to get a job. The entire tone of the humanities is set by the third group; politicians in academia. But the second group is apparently so marginalized, I’m not sure it even exists any more.

So much so, I would not want my own kids to go to college as members of the second group. They will go to college, if I have any say in the matter. But purely as part of the first group: get yoru credentials, and get a job. If they want to learn about something (Plato, or the Napoleonic Wars, or the writings of Charles Dickens), I expect them to learn it outside of college. If they wanted to be part of academia (which I wanted in my youth), I’d be disappointed. Academia is no place for a confident, curious, productive intelligent person.

Furthermore, the rot is everywhere. Perhaps at one time, I would have preferred to go to a small private school (rather than State U)-more curious, intelligent people. But if the same rot is everywhere, there is no reason to spend 3x for the same thing. State U is fine for credentials.

Again, I have no idea whether my views are widespread. But it certainly appears (from the media, from Inside Higher Education and Chronicle of Higher Education) that college as an education doesn’t even exist any more.

There is a prevailing sense of the unearned barely hidden in that assistant professor’s declarations. Daring to spout controversial slogans at an audience that is either bullied routinely into silence by unsubtle threats of sanction, or eagerly abetting such puerile displays, is not professing, any more than that exercised by the hapless ex-Missouri academic calling for “some muscle over here”.

Controlling the dialog is a poor substitute for attempting to control (let alone generate new) thoughts, but seems to be the weapon of choice. In the absence of more substantial rationale, spouting and sputtering seem to garner undeserved attention. Seen in the context of that other recent paragon of thought that wanted to excise Aristotle (Aristotle!), at some point the silliness would seem to overwhelm even the true believers and lead them to laugh the speakers off the stage.

Academic speak words like "intervene" and "interrogate" are not really markers of fascism (which is not to say that the modern academy is not fascistic in its desire to impose conformity). Rather they are used as jargon to make what they are doing seem scientific and professional and disguise the fact that they aren't really doing anything of value. So if our professor told us that what she does is watch reality TV a lot and writes about how it makes her feel, we might not be willing to pay her for that job.

I completely agree. It would be amusing that these academics think using this jargon adds gravitas to their writing if so much money wasn’t being wasted in the process.

I think she's trying to come off like a bad translation of some frivolous French post-structuralist, post-modernist blather, and pretty much landing on the the green. They think it sounds profound, instead of demented and obscurantist (c.f. Dan Dennett's "deepities" ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjsC53RGO4Q, and the Sokal hoax https://www.quora.com/How-did-post-modernists-respond-to-Sokals-hoax-article).

I was surprised when many top colleges delivered the same pitch. It turns out, they’re all a little bit like Hogwarts — the school for witches and wizards in the “Harry Potter” books and movies. Or at least, that’s what the tour guides kept telling me.
During a Harvard information session, the admissions officer compared the intramural sports competitions there to the Hogwarts House Cup. The tour guide told me that I wouldn’t be able to see the university’s huge freshman dining hall as it was closed for the day, but to just imagine Hogwarts’s Great Hall in its place.

During a Harvard information session, the admissions officer compared the intramural sports competitions there to the Hogwarts House Cup. The tour guide told me that I wouldn’t be able to see the university’s huge freshman dining hall as it was closed for the day, but to just imagine Hogwarts’s Great Hall in its place.

Maybe this will help save some of the architectural treasures of Western Civilization. These snowflakes will want a place like Windsor Castle preserved because it reminds them of something from Harry Potter. What an insult to Harvard's history and tradition. The worst part is they are encouraging this.

Tom Wolfe interrupted "I Am Charlotte Simmons" to point out when the poor, harassed Jewish student escapes from a humiliating role he's forced to play at a gay rights rally into the magnificent college library that few things give you a feeling of well-being more than conspicuous consumption to which you have rightful access.

Memorial Hall is an academic gem. But if it is ever used for banqueting it is only on very special occasions.

I regularly walk by what I believe is still the freshman dining hall at Harvard. (At least it was when a friend attended Harvard back in the early 1970s.) It is on the first floor of a building on Brattle Street. Large windows make it easy to look in. It's actually dingier than the dining rooms of any of the nine colleges and universities I attended or taught at.

After freshman year most Harvard students reside in a House. Each House has its own dining services. My limited experience suggests that none is up to the best academic dining services I've experienced.

The Harvard Faculty Club does have a really good spread though. I've eaten there maybe a half dozen times.

Ex, You may be right. When my daughter was getting her Masters in Psychology she would have me read her papers. It seemed that the more tortured the verbiage and obtuse the meaning, the better it was accepted by her mentors.

BTW Steve, can you recommend a browser setup for reading your articles on Taki? The website seems to have the most aggressive ad software I have seen on any site not originating from a back room in Kiev. It appears to be doing things like trying to rewrite the last browsing history page and website home page with an ad pop-up URL. I have tried IE, Chrome and Safari and can’t read the site anymore on either my PC or iPad; The security measures lockup the page up indefinitely while they fight a desperate, silent, close quarters battle with the adbots.

BTW Steve, can you recommend a browser setup for reading your articles on Taki? The website seems to have the most aggressive ad software I have seen on any site not originating from a back room in Kiev.

Install Ublock origin on Chrome and Firefox. I also installed flashblock on Firefox. All on Windows 7 and Windows 10 laptops and PCs. https://www.bing.com/search?q=Ublock+origin&pc=MOZI&form=MOZCONhttps://www.bing.com/search?q=flashblock&pc=MOZI&form=MOZCON

After increasing browser crashes due to even one tab of Taki's, I finally installed the NoScript extension specifically to read Taki's. I'd be glad to support their advertisers, but it was just killing the browser every time. So they're all shut off now.

P.S. I also use AdBlock Plus and Ghostery, but the NoScript is the one that seemed to make Taki's readable.

BTW Steve, can you recommend a browser setup for reading your articles on Taki? The website seems to have the most aggressive ad software I have seen on any site not originating from a back room in Kiev. It appears to be doing things like trying to rewrite the last browsing history page and website home page with an ad pop-up URL. I have tried IE, Chrome and Safari and can't read the site anymore on either my PC or iPad; The security measures lockup the page up indefinitely while they fight a desperate, silent, close quarters battle with the adbots.

Alfa, try Firefox with Adblock Plus. That’s what I use (though I also keep Javascript turned off unless I need it, as well as images), and I had no trouble. I have a few other addons that might’ve been a factor.

FF has lost a lot of market share and has its issues, but I still find it the most tweakable browser with the most options, by far.

I think there is the appeal of Impossiblism. It’ s a carryover from religion, maybe.

The paradox of religion is that its depressing un-attainable-ness is also addictively therapeutic. For instance, we cannot create Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Depressing in a way. But it also makes us hope forever because the impossible can never be disproved or tarnished.

Communism, in contrast, did have a chance to create kingdom of heaven on earth, and the result was dire.

So, there is the appeal of the Impossible in ideology. It will always remain pure. It’s like the song in ‘Tomorrow’ in ANNIE. It’s always a day head. It’s like what Scarlett O’Hara says in GONE WITH THE WIND. ‘Tomorrow will be another day.” Tomorrow is always one step ahead, always hopeful and pure. When tomorrow comes, it is ‘today’, and tomorrow is again a day ahead, again pure.

With communism, radicals made tomorrow into today, and they got depressed by the result.
Progs no longer want to deal with tomorrow becoming today.

So, radicals or fadicals now cook up impossible stuff that has all the sound and fury of radical yammering but no real bearing on reality. And since it’s so impossible, they never have to carry the burden of fixing real problems. Just yammer endlessly about need for more pronouns. If you can’t change reality, change the terminology of reality so that it gives the impression that you are really doing something about the world.

It is no wonder so many progs wanna hide out in the academia. That way, they can make a lot of noise about saving/fixing the world without dealing with real problems of real people. And Wall Street guys are willing to play along with this charade since such goofery doesn’t cut into profits of oligarchs. Better to have the prog professors fume about 50 genders and endless pronouns than denounce globalism that is destroying native working classes.

The bubble mentality of prog elites can be seen in the movie KWIKSTOP.

Now, this movie is about some run-down working class town, not some fancy college. And yet, the mentality of its lead male character isn’t much different from that of academics. He is addicted to impossiblism. As long as he remains in the small town bubble, he can dream big impossible dreams about going to the big city and making it and becoming famous. It’s an impossible dream, but it’s something to hope for in the bubble of his hometown where he wraps himself in dreams. But when the moment comes for him to actually step outside and do something, he steps back. He doesn’t want to go to the big city since he fears his dream will just shatter into nothingness. And then, he will no longer have the dream. So, he clings to the very place he says he wants to escape.

Academics, as ‘leftists’ and ‘egalitarians’, bitch about the evil of privilege and isolation from real problems, but they must seek privilege in isolation to maintain their fanciful impossiblist ideologies. In the real world, they would realize their view of the world is total caca.
Reality will blow up their fanciful ideologies.
They don’t wanna go to Detroit or Baltimore and deal with real problems. They’d rather stick around campus, discourse studies about Black Lives Matter and how it intersects with some white guy who wants to cut his balls off which intersects with a Mexican tomato picker which intersects with a Muslim woman with American flag hijab. To maintain this ideological haze, they have to stay in their own bubble… because reality is a needle that will prick such bubbles in no time.

I think it’s generally true that those on the Right tend to be more realistic(as long as they’re not libertarian purists). They don’t ask for too much. They are not out to save the world or redeem it. They figure there are core truths about political stability(nation-state is best model), moral values(family centrism is best), economics(free markets with social safety nets), and etc. They are Today-ists. (Arch-reactionaries are yesterday-ists.) In contrast, all these fadicals cannot stand reality. It doesn’t conform to their fantasies. Also, reality means they must roll up sleeves and do something. When confronted with the Possible, you must do it. So, it’s better to cook up some Impossible and pontificate about doing it Tomorrow when we shall grow nearer to the rainbow.

It’s no wonder homos and trannies are now so popular among the Progs. Look at Michael Jackson and Bruce Jenner. They prefer fantasies to reality.

I was surprised when many top colleges delivered the same pitch. It turns out, they’re all a little bit like Hogwarts — the school for witches and wizards in the “Harry Potter” books and movies. Or at least, that’s what the tour guides kept telling me.During a Harvard information session, the admissions officer compared the intramural sports competitions there to the Hogwarts House Cup. The tour guide told me that I wouldn’t be able to see the university’s huge freshman dining hall as it was closed for the day, but to just imagine Hogwarts’s Great Hall in its place.

https://twitter.com/harvard/status/292276844940627968?lang=en

During a Harvard information session, the admissions officer compared the intramural sports competitions there to the Hogwarts House Cup. The tour guide told me that I wouldn’t be able to see the university’s huge freshman dining hall as it was closed for the day, but to just imagine Hogwarts’s Great Hall in its place.

Maybe this will help save some of the architectural treasures of Western Civilization. These snowflakes will want a place like Windsor Castle preserved because it reminds them of something from Harry Potter. What an insult to Harvard’s history and tradition. The worst part is they are encouraging this.

Here's a positive suggestion: embrace the kitsch and take the long view. Today's Harvard is an imitation of itself imitating itself imitating the older English models that probably have their own tawdry, kitschy histories that we are blinded to because, hey, beautiful buildings, great stories, marvelous achievements.

The US is splendid and also ridiculous. Quasi-religious, destructive crazes like SJWism have existed in all phases of US and British history (those Protestant sects!...). Despite it all, some manage to learn, to think, and to achieve. So work with the foolishness, try to blunt its nastier edges, point out and exploit its obvious contradictions as Steve does so well and humorously, and don't despair.

Perhaps Harvard's "history and tradition" will survive the current insults. Let's hope!

(Also, Steve points out the glory of Harvard is related to winning wars. So let's not confuse the causes and effects. Let's try to keep winning wars, or lose as gracefully and as cheaply as possible. Then Harvard will survive comparisons to a silly but much-loved and oddly conservative and traditionalist children's book.)

Wow. We are truly in the Kali Yuga now. I think those academic papers are quite serious, not parody or humor, but that is so hard to believe! It's terrifying to think that these people are just itching to get their hands on political power, and they probably will do so, I guess. Were even the Red Guard or the Khmer Rouge this divorced from reality? I doubt it.

We are in the Cultural Marxist cognate with Stalin or Mao in classical Marxism. The same basic absolute insanity is presented as the New and Perfect Normal, and anyone who doubts will be hounded relentlessly.

Yes, the PC SJWs are itching to do to us what the Soviets did to Catholic and Orthodox priests and monks and then to the masses who either backed those religious or finally realized the horror and could no longer back it honestly.

I hope you are right.I hope things don't get worse.I am pretty sure Ron Unz could figure out exactly who I am in real life if he put his mind to it. I am trusting him.I am not a good believer, but if I had to choose I would be a good believer over a good SJW.

I especially appreciated the recognition of how a cosy Downtonie/Dumbledorian/Austenesque ethos/atmosphere is more highly sought after than ever, especially by the battalions of the Interrogating Woke.

It shows how leftist/academic desire is hopelessly adolescent, maybe even tweenie: they want to rebel, but within the safe confines of a well-structured story in which a satisfying, happy ending is a comfortable inevitability. I think they also love the way they can rip off the traditions of the west by reinterpreting and radicalizing them -- or, if they can't figure out a way to appropriate and reinvent and degrade the beauty which they've been handed as a gift, they exalt in simply destroying it.

Most academic 'radicals' have been coddled since birth; they have grown up in safe, pleasant environments in which their acting up has been laughed off and even praised (especially if they're the right gender/sexuality/race), with consequences diffused or cushioned. They're like puppies play-fighting on thick carpet. None of them really expect or desire a revolution; they want their bowls filled and their messes cleaned up on a very regular basis.

But the times are changing. The soft carpet of American 'hegemony' and prosperity that absorbed academia's performative (to use one of their words) rebelliousness is wearing dangerously thin in many places.

But the times are changing. The soft carpet of American ‘hegemony’ and prosperity that absorbed academia’s performative (to use one of their words) rebelliousness is wearing dangerously thin in many places.

you’ve been to the finest school alright miss lonely\
but you only used to get juiced in it\

false eylashes\subtracted by people constantly torturing each other. with a melody purrig line of discriptive hollowness

the vagabond who’s knocking at your door\
is standing in the clothes, that you once wore\
the carpet too is moving under you\
and it’s all over now, baby blue

I especially appreciated the recognition of how a cosy Downtonie/Dumbledorian/Austenesque ethos/atmosphere is more highly sought after than ever, especially by the battalions of the Interrogating Woke.

It shows how leftist/academic desire is hopelessly adolescent, maybe even tweenie: they want to rebel, but within the safe confines of a well-structured story in which a satisfying, happy ending is a comfortable inevitability. I think they also love the way they can rip off the traditions of the west by reinterpreting and radicalizing them -- or, if they can't figure out a way to appropriate and reinvent and degrade the beauty which they've been handed as a gift, they exalt in simply destroying it.

Most academic 'radicals' have been coddled since birth; they have grown up in safe, pleasant environments in which their acting up has been laughed off and even praised (especially if they're the right gender/sexuality/race), with consequences diffused or cushioned. They're like puppies play-fighting on thick carpet. None of them really expect or desire a revolution; they want their bowls filled and their messes cleaned up on a very regular basis.

But the times are changing. The soft carpet of American 'hegemony' and prosperity that absorbed academia's performative (to use one of their words) rebelliousness is wearing dangerously thin in many places.

I keep saying that we need a real depression. Perhaps we’ll soon have one.

An important concept in the New Economy is "curation". A desirable cheese shop, wine store, sock store, olive oil store, etc. doesn't just put a random bunch of stuff on the shelf like some Wal-Mart and expect you to figure out what you really like. Rather they present you with a "curated collection" of socks, oils, etc. so that there are not any wrong choices - you get to chose from a few carefully chosen winners who will not disappoint you. The hard work has been done for you and you shouldn't mind paying a few more pennies for the privilege.

Likewise, the modern university is supposed to present you, the student, with a curated collection of diverse students. There are blacks and Hispanics but not those violent ghetto types who will give you a fierce hangover like some rotgut bourbon. This is why Pablo "They" was so disappointing - Berkeley Hispanics aren't supposed to be the kind who stab you. Likewise, this is where all the "Mattress Girl" anger comes from. The University has failed in its mission. You were supposed to be presented with a "curated" collection of men who would know that no means no (or that sometimes even yes means no under certain conditions) and they have failed in their curating mission. The admissions committee has failed to blackball a cad - what kind of country club is this?

The word is popping up everywhere these days. It’s not from academic writing, like “interrogate”, but from nonprofit marketing.

The role of magic is important. Reason is denied and elite universities then become mere market signalling devices that you are willing to jump through the hoops and do the work necessary to work for the oligarchy, to work at McKinsey, GS, etc.
And what was #blacklivesmatter as a college admissions essay but a gnostic, magical incantation of mumbo jumbo echoing from the subcontinent?
The West has always fought against eastern magic, from Julian the Apostate’s neo-Platonic magic through John Dee’s alchemy and today…
I think regarding magic and the occult Chesterton or Lewis said something like, “beware the spirits you summon, the ones who answer won’t be the ones you want.”
#blackmagicmatters

As I've mentioned at length in other comments, contemporary progressivism in its many facets is essentially a Christian heresy with predominantly gnostic elements. The Woke long for recognition of their special enlightened status and its privileges.

This is another reason the Harry Potter books seems to have captured the progressive imagination.These books' strong traditional narrative and fortress-like setting create a 'safe space' for the esoteric expressiveness of the Very Special People who are called to Hogwarts and 'awakened' to their true, superior nature. Problems can be solved, literally, by magic.

Academic speak words like "intervene" and "interrogate" are not really markers of fascism (which is not to say that the modern academy is not fascistic in its desire to impose conformity). Rather they are used as jargon to make what they are doing seem scientific and professional and disguise the fact that they aren't really doing anything of value. So if our professor told us that what she does is watch reality TV a lot and writes about how it makes her feel, we might not be willing to pay her for that job.

But where do they get the distinctly Nazi-sounding verbs “interrogate” and “intervene” as in “We will intervene in the Sudentenland to protect fellow Germans from the Slavic untermenschen”?

words are one thing - Nazis are - compared to words, wayyyy shorter, so to speak.

intervene is more than 200o years old (cf lat. intervenire - with exactly the same meaning as it is used in your example today). It took on it's meaning used in your example in the writings of french ambassadors in the time of enlightenment.

interrogate - german (=Nazi...) "vernehmen" - is of gotic origin and has changed its meaning somewhat during the 1000 years it can be traced back.

both words originally described something spatial/physical and this meaning was - as so often - transferred to help describe social - - interactions - - you could now go on with the word interaction, - - and find exactly the same genealogy.

Dammit, host. Do you have any idea the amount of text formatting I now have to do?

Nazi schmazi. It's frogs all the way down, young man.

Till you get back to those Roman fasces-carriers and those Indo-European swastika-carvers.

interrogate (v.) late 15c., a back-formation from interrogation or else from Latin interrogatus, past participle of interrogare "to ask, question." The Old French word was interroger (14c.) which yielded English interroge (late 15c.), now obsolete. Related: Interrogated; interrogating.

intervention (n.) early 15c., "intercession, intercessory prayer," from Middle French intervention or directly from Late Latin interventionem (nominative interventio) "an interposing, a giving security," literally "a coming between," noun of action from past participle stem of Latin intervenire "to come between, interrupt," from inter "between" (see inter-) + venire "to come," from a suffixed form of PIE root *gwa- "to go, come." Later "act of intervening" in any way; in 19c.-20c. often of international relations; by 1983 of interpersonal intrusions by friends or family meant to reform a life felt to be going wrong.

"When an observer approaches a three-dimensional artwork, such as Xit by Ta'kwanzaa White-Coates, one must confront/interpret the piece as it exists, both in its own terms as well as the observer's, within its own self-defined enclosed space. It must be interrogated as it exists in itself, and also as it represents/manifests both the artist's and the interrogator's perceived world-view. How does the piece reflect/challenge the observer's felt sense of racial/gender identity, for example? How is it a reflection of societal norms? &c., &c."

From The Artwork: Perception, Interrogation, Evaluation by Samantha Shoenfeld-Klein

After a few minutes of Googling, I’m guessing this is a parody, right?

.........to interrogate how time moves and for whom to catalog desire and identification as taxonomy and type.

The ridiculous empty jumble of verbiage employed by these frauds seems to be instinctive, although it certainly serves a purpose: to mask their vacuousness. This is faux intellectualism for people who ought to be tending bar at Starbucks. It would be funny to write a meta-analysis of such nonsense: "Tossing the word salad: privilege and pretension as expressed by scholarly auto-fellation."

The solution to this is to abolish tenure at State Universities and starve them of funds. Make them fire people and shed these useless eaters from their payrolls. At least we wouldn't be subsidizing our own undermining. As an added bonus, it would be fun to see the resultant reserve army of unemployed X-studies professors driving down the salaries of those at private colleges. Turn the soft academic labor market into Thunderdome.

Academia is a citadel of the left. The culture war must be brought home to them..........there. Make them police their own speech. Make them fear for their livelihoods. Hell, bring in indian H1-Bs to take their jobs and make the professors train their replacements. State legislators can do it, if they dare.

I was surprised when many top colleges delivered the same pitch. It turns out, they’re all a little bit like Hogwarts — the school for witches and wizards in the “Harry Potter” books and movies. Or at least, that’s what the tour guides kept telling me.During a Harvard information session, the admissions officer compared the intramural sports competitions there to the Hogwarts House Cup. The tour guide told me that I wouldn’t be able to see the university’s huge freshman dining hall as it was closed for the day, but to just imagine Hogwarts’s Great Hall in its place.

https://twitter.com/harvard/status/292276844940627968?lang=en

Tom Wolfe interrupted “I Am Charlotte Simmons” to point out when the poor, harassed Jewish student escapes from a humiliating role he’s forced to play at a gay rights rally into the magnificent college library that few things give you a feeling of well-being more than conspicuous consumption to which you have rightful access.

The first attempt to rank universities in America was conducted by J. McKeen Cattell, a psychology professor at Columbia University. He published a 600-page work, American Men of Science. Although mainly a biographical dictionary, Cattell grouped the names by institution, beginning with the 2nd edition in 1910. He calculated both overall rankings and departmental rankings based on the number of eminent men (and women) in science affiliated with American universities and government agencies.

Cattell was the first professor of psychology in the United States, receiving an appointment at the University of Pennsylvania, but he later moved to Columbia. Upon his death, the New York Times saluted him as “the dean of American science.”

The first attempt to rank universities in America was conducted by J. McKeen Cattell, a psychology professor at Columbia University. He published a 600-page work, American Men of Science. Although mainly a biographical dictionary, Cattell grouped the names by institution, beginning with the 2nd edition in 1910. He calculated both overall rankings and departmental rankings based on the number of eminent men (and women) in science affiliated with American universities and government agencies.

Cattell was the first professor of psychology in the United States, receiving an appointment at the University of Pennsylvania, but he later moved to Columbia. Upon his death, the New York Times saluted him as "the dean of American science."

Cornell is also surprisingly high considering it was only founded 45 years earlier, and it was located way in the boonies before the era of easy transport. The other top ten schools of 1910 are all urban, with the arguable exception of Wisconsin (80 flat miles from Milwaukee vs. Cornell 200-odd rocky miles from NYC).

But yeah, U of Chicago went from not existing to 2nd in the nation in a mere 20 years. That's gotta be some kind of ascendance record.

BTW Steve, can you recommend a browser setup for reading your articles on Taki? The website seems to have the most aggressive ad software I have seen on any site not originating from a back room in Kiev. It appears to be doing things like trying to rewrite the last browsing history page and website home page with an ad pop-up URL. I have tried IE, Chrome and Safari and can't read the site anymore on either my PC or iPad; The security measures lockup the page up indefinitely while they fight a desperate, silent, close quarters battle with the adbots.

BTW Steve, can you recommend a browser setup for reading your articles on Taki? The website seems to have the most aggressive ad software I have seen on any site not originating from a back room in Kiev.

Install Ublock origin on Chrome and Firefox. I also installed flashblock on Firefox. All on Windows 7 and Windows 10 laptops and PCs.

But where do they get the distinctly Nazi-sounding verbs "interrogate" and "intervene" as in "We will intervene in the Sudentenland to protect fellow Germans from the Slavic untermenschen"?

Is it via Heidegger -> Sartre -> to French postmodernists?

distinctly Nazi-sounding verbs “interrogate” and “intervene”

words are one thing – Nazis are – compared to words, wayyyy shorter, so to speak.

intervene is more than 200o years old (cf lat. intervenire – with exactly the same meaning as it is used in your example today). It took on it’s meaning used in your example in the writings of french ambassadors in the time of enlightenment.

interrogate – german (=Nazi…) “vernehmen” – is of gotic origin and has changed its meaning somewhat during the 1000 years it can be traced back.

both words originally described something spatial/physical and this meaning was – as so often – transferred to help describe social – – interactions – – you could now go on with the word interaction, – – and find exactly the same genealogy.

During a Harvard information session, the admissions officer compared the intramural sports competitions there to the Hogwarts House Cup. The tour guide told me that I wouldn’t be able to see the university’s huge freshman dining hall as it was closed for the day, but to just imagine Hogwarts’s Great Hall in its place.

Maybe this will help save some of the architectural treasures of Western Civilization. These snowflakes will want a place like Windsor Castle preserved because it reminds them of something from Harry Potter. What an insult to Harvard's history and tradition. The worst part is they are encouraging this.

Here’s a positive suggestion: embrace the kitsch and take the long view. Today’s Harvard is an imitation of itself imitating itself imitating the older English models that probably have their own tawdry, kitschy histories that we are blinded to because, hey, beautiful buildings, great stories, marvelous achievements.

The US is splendid and also ridiculous. Quasi-religious, destructive crazes like SJWism have existed in all phases of US and British history (those Protestant sects!…). Despite it all, some manage to learn, to think, and to achieve. So work with the foolishness, try to blunt its nastier edges, point out and exploit its obvious contradictions as Steve does so well and humorously, and don’t despair.

Perhaps Harvard’s “history and tradition” will survive the current insults. Let’s hope!

(Also, Steve points out the glory of Harvard is related to winning wars. So let’s not confuse the causes and effects. Let’s try to keep winning wars, or lose as gracefully and as cheaply as possible. Then Harvard will survive comparisons to a silly but much-loved and oddly conservative and traditionalist children’s book.)

.........to interrogate how time moves and for whom to catalog desire and identification as taxonomy and type.

The ridiculous empty jumble of verbiage employed by these frauds seems to be instinctive, although it certainly serves a purpose: to mask their vacuousness. This is faux intellectualism for people who ought to be tending bar at Starbucks. It would be funny to write a meta-analysis of such nonsense: "Tossing the word salad: privilege and pretension as expressed by scholarly auto-fellation."

The solution to this is to abolish tenure at State Universities and starve them of funds. Make them fire people and shed these useless eaters from their payrolls. At least we wouldn't be subsidizing our own undermining. As an added bonus, it would be fun to see the resultant reserve army of unemployed X-studies professors driving down the salaries of those at private colleges. Turn the soft academic labor market into Thunderdome.

Academia is a citadel of the left. The culture war must be brought home to them..........there. Make them police their own speech. Make them fear for their livelihoods. Hell, bring in indian H1-Bs to take their jobs and make the professors train their replacements. State legislators can do it, if they dare.

The University is kept afloat by Disparate Impact doctrine. Since it is de facto illegal for me to select smarter applicants using an aptitude test, I have to rely on the second-best solution of having universities test for me, as part of a very large bundle of services.

Agree. The "Disparate Impact" pseudo-doctrine came from Griggs v. Duke Power. Ironically, the Court in Griggs was prosecuting the supposedly unnecessary use of high school diplomas as a requirement for employment.

So after the Court's (in)judicious meddling in every hiring decision in America, now college degrees are a requirement for almost everything. And the substance of the degrees has been hollowed out. And the cost has gone way, way up. And the academies have become expensive deadweight parasites.

I was surprised when many top colleges delivered the same pitch. It turns out, they’re all a little bit like Hogwarts — the school for witches and wizards in the “Harry Potter” books and movies. Or at least, that’s what the tour guides kept telling me.During a Harvard information session, the admissions officer compared the intramural sports competitions there to the Hogwarts House Cup. The tour guide told me that I wouldn’t be able to see the university’s huge freshman dining hall as it was closed for the day, but to just imagine Hogwarts’s Great Hall in its place.

https://twitter.com/harvard/status/292276844940627968?lang=en

Memorial Hall is an academic gem. But if it is ever used for banqueting it is only on very special occasions.

I regularly walk by what I believe is still the freshman dining hall at Harvard. (At least it was when a friend attended Harvard back in the early 1970s.) It is on the first floor of a building on Brattle Street. Large windows make it easy to look in. It’s actually dingier than the dining rooms of any of the nine colleges and universities I attended or taught at.

After freshman year most Harvard students reside in a House. Each House has its own dining services. My limited experience suggests that none is up to the best academic dining services I’ve experienced.

The Harvard Faculty Club does have a really good spread though. I’ve eaten there maybe a half dozen times.

Memorial Hall is an academic gem. But if it is ever used for banqueting it is only on very special occasions.

I regularly walk by what I believe is still the freshman dining hall at Harvard. (At least it was when a friend attended Harvard back in the early 1970s.) It is on the first floor of a building on Brattle Street. Large windows make it easy to look in. It's actually dingier than the dining rooms of any of the nine colleges and universities I attended or taught at.

After freshman year most Harvard students reside in a House. Each House has its own dining services. My limited experience suggests that none is up to the best academic dining services I've experienced.

The Harvard Faculty Club does have a really good spread though. I've eaten there maybe a half dozen times.

That's true, in many ways. Still, I'd say Harvard's campus is in the top 5% of the US, architecturally, easily. It is still far below some of the best campuses. Honestly, I prefer MIT to Harvard, due to the honest endeavor and lesser pretension. But Wellesley is amazing. (I think someone concurred in some recent comments.)

Yeah, it's sort of dilapidated, if in a charmingly New England colonial way.

Oddly, the quadrangle of the University of Chicago, which was built as a modern imitation of Oxford at a university famous for its materialist doctrines, is actually one of the most aesthetically pleasing in the world. Better than the original even.

I think she's trying to come off like a bad translation of some frivolous French post-structuralist, post-modernist blather, and pretty much landing on the the green. They think it sounds profound, instead of demented and obscurantist (c.f. Dan Dennett's "deepities" ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjsC53RGO4Q, and the Sokal hoax https://www.quora.com/How-did-post-modernists-respond-to-Sokals-hoax-article).

Ex, You may be right. When my daughter was getting her Masters in Psychology she would have me read her papers. It seemed that the more tortured the verbiage and obtuse the meaning, the better it was accepted by her mentors.

words are one thing - Nazis are - compared to words, wayyyy shorter, so to speak.

intervene is more than 200o years old (cf lat. intervenire - with exactly the same meaning as it is used in your example today). It took on it's meaning used in your example in the writings of french ambassadors in the time of enlightenment.

interrogate - german (=Nazi...) "vernehmen" - is of gotic origin and has changed its meaning somewhat during the 1000 years it can be traced back.

both words originally described something spatial/physical and this meaning was - as so often - transferred to help describe social - - interactions - - you could now go on with the word interaction, - - and find exactly the same genealogy.

Memorial Hall is an academic gem. But if it is ever used for banqueting it is only on very special occasions.

I regularly walk by what I believe is still the freshman dining hall at Harvard. (At least it was when a friend attended Harvard back in the early 1970s.) It is on the first floor of a building on Brattle Street. Large windows make it easy to look in. It's actually dingier than the dining rooms of any of the nine colleges and universities I attended or taught at.

After freshman year most Harvard students reside in a House. Each House has its own dining services. My limited experience suggests that none is up to the best academic dining services I've experienced.

The Harvard Faculty Club does have a really good spread though. I've eaten there maybe a half dozen times.

I think your knowledge is out of date:

“Freshmen have the privilege of taking all of their meals in Annenberg Hall”

The word interrogate is misused here. It comes from inter ("between") and rogare ("ask"). In other words, some kind of back and forth is implied, as when interrogating a suspect. But a subject of study is inanimate, so there can be no back and forth. Therefore the word investigate is used (in + vestigare [to track or trace out]).

Leftists don't want a proper discussion with give and take. I guess "interrogate" sounds so hardcore though, so to hell with the meanings of words. It's just that, I thought knowledge was sort of where academics were supposed to derive their authority from? Nowadays they just want the authority without the knowledge or scholarship.

That 60/40 split would make for a good dating environment for males, if they could navigate the thicket of regulations. Maybe there is an app for that, customizable to each campus? For Harvard, press 1, for Suffolk Community, press 2.

Tom Wolfe interrupted "I Am Charlotte Simmons" to point out when the poor, harassed Jewish student escapes from a humiliating role he's forced to play at a gay rights rally into the magnificent college library that few things give you a feeling of well-being more than conspicuous consumption to which you have rightful access.

When I was an undergrad at Berkeley, Doe Memorial Library was my favorite place for studying:

That 4-year on-campus higher education has become roughly 60% female and 40% male means that universities have realized it--it's merely been interpreted as "feature" rather than "bug."

That 60/40 split would make for a good dating environment for males, if they could navigate the thicket of regulations. Maybe there is an app for that, customizable to each campus? For Harvard, press 1, for Suffolk Community, press 2.

I'm not joking at all when I say that developing such an app would probably earn you a liveable wage. Guys will download it to help judge their chances of getting away with certain lines and strategies.

BTW Steve, can you recommend a browser setup for reading your articles on Taki? The website seems to have the most aggressive ad software I have seen on any site not originating from a back room in Kiev. It appears to be doing things like trying to rewrite the last browsing history page and website home page with an ad pop-up URL. I have tried IE, Chrome and Safari and can't read the site anymore on either my PC or iPad; The security measures lockup the page up indefinitely while they fight a desperate, silent, close quarters battle with the adbots.

I loved Taki, especially the comments. But I’ve given up trying to navigate it. That’s why I’ve come to UNZ, mostly to read Steve and the comments about his articles.

Interesting column, though I'm not sure that I agree with the premise. My personal sense (and this post is really personal impressions-I have no real sense that it represents a societal wide shift-though it might) is that college really has changed.

I'd say, to simplify, that there were three groups of kids that went to college: those for job improvement (credentials), those with intellectual curiosity (the old school historian/philosopher/english major/etc), and those who want to change society (perhaps epitomized by 60's radicals).

I went to college in the 80's, and then graduate school. I was genuinely in the second group: I wanted to read/learn because I wanted to read/learn.

There was a tension at that time between me and the third group (really between conservative and liberals, but they were represented by the 2nd and 3rd group in this telling). But I, and other students like me, were a part of the university.

I don't think that is the case today. I have no doubt that I have opinions that would get me fired as a teaching/graduate assistant today. Polite disagreement doesn't seem to even be possible.

And as a result, I suspect that the second group really doesn't exist any more. There are plenty in the first group: college to get a job. The entire tone of the humanities is set by the third group; politicians in academia. But the second group is apparently so marginalized, I'm not sure it even exists any more.

So much so, I would not want my own kids to go to college as members of the second group. They will go to college, if I have any say in the matter. But purely as part of the first group: get yoru credentials, and get a job. If they want to learn about something (Plato, or the Napoleonic Wars, or the writings of Charles Dickens), I expect them to learn it outside of college. If they wanted to be part of academia (which I wanted in my youth), I'd be disappointed. Academia is no place for a confident, curious, productive intelligent person.

Furthermore, the rot is everywhere. Perhaps at one time, I would have preferred to go to a small private school (rather than State U)-more curious, intelligent people. But if the same rot is everywhere, there is no reason to spend 3x for the same thing. State U is fine for credentials.

Again, I have no idea whether my views are widespread. But it certainly appears (from the media, from Inside Higher Education and Chronicle of Higher Education) that college as an education doesn't even exist any more.

joeyjoejoe

This is an excellent comment, and I pretty much agree, sadly, with your conclusions.

The role of magic is important. Reason is denied and elite universities then become mere market signalling devices that you are willing to jump through the hoops and do the work necessary to work for the oligarchy, to work at McKinsey, GS, etc.
And what was #blacklivesmatter as a college admissions essay but a gnostic, magical incantation of mumbo jumbo echoing from the subcontinent?
The West has always fought against eastern magic, from Julian the Apostate's neo-Platonic magic through John Dee's alchemy and today...
I think regarding magic and the occult Chesterton or Lewis said something like, "beware the spirits you summon, the ones who answer won't be the ones you want."
#blackmagicmatters

Exellent observations.

As I’ve mentioned at length in other comments, contemporary progressivism in its many facets is essentially a Christian heresy with predominantly gnostic elements. The Woke long for recognition of their special enlightened status and its privileges.

This is another reason the Harry Potter books seems to have captured the progressive imagination.These books’ strong traditional narrative and fortress-like setting create a ‘safe space’ for the esoteric expressiveness of the Very Special People who are called to Hogwarts and ‘awakened’ to their true, superior nature. Problems can be solved, literally, by magic.

I wondered how she intervened in TV shows when she lives in Beloit Wisconsin.
But someone explained that the idiot thinks intervene means watch. Or maybe she hallucinates and thinks she actually works on the shows?

“catalog desire and identification” hmmm
Maybe desire means watching the shopping shows, wanting something and buying it? Identification, do I identify with Charlie and Alan Harper or all those pretty girls.
If you want to read even worse gobbledygook check out the departments of education writings. It’s as though a some software dove into a thesaurus and just threw all the words around.

We are in the Cultural Marxist cognate with Stalin or Mao in classical Marxism. The same basic absolute insanity is presented as the New and Perfect Normal, and anyone who doubts will be hounded relentlessly.

Yes, the PC SJWs are itching to do to us what the Soviets did to Catholic and Orthodox priests and monks and then to the masses who either backed those religious or finally realized the horror and could no longer back it honestly.

I hope you are right.
I hope things don’t get worse.
I am pretty sure Ron Unz could figure out exactly who I am in real life if he put his mind to
it. I am trusting him.
I am not a good believer, but if I had to choose I would be a good believer over a good SJW.

That 60/40 split would make for a good dating environment for males, if they could navigate the thicket of regulations. Maybe there is an app for that, customizable to each campus? For Harvard, press 1, for Suffolk Community, press 2.

I’m not joking at all when I say that developing such an app would probably earn you a liveable wage. Guys will download it to help judge their chances of getting away with certain lines and strategies.

That’s true, in many ways. Still, I’d say Harvard’s campus is in the top 5% of the US, architecturally, easily. It is still far below some of the best campuses. Honestly, I prefer MIT to Harvard, due to the honest endeavor and lesser pretension. But Wellesley is amazing. (I think someone concurred in some recent comments.)

The University is kept afloat by Disparate Impact doctrine. Since it is de facto illegal for me to select smarter applicants using an aptitude test, I have to rely on the second-best solution of having universities test for me, as part of a very large bundle of services.

True, but most people don’t know that. They are not consciously aware of it.

State universities are state supported. State governments can exert their will upon them, if they choose to.

The University is kept afloat by Disparate Impact doctrine. Since it is de facto illegal for me to select smarter applicants using an aptitude test, I have to rely on the second-best solution of having universities test for me, as part of a very large bundle of services.

Agree. The “Disparate Impact” pseudo-doctrine came from Griggs v. Duke Power. Ironically, the Court in Griggs was prosecuting the supposedly unnecessary use of high school diplomas as a requirement for employment.

So after the Court’s (in)judicious meddling in every hiring decision in America, now college degrees are a requirement for almost everything. And the substance of the degrees has been hollowed out. And the cost has gone way, way up. And the academies have become expensive deadweight parasites.

Congress can change this anytime they want to. Of course, that would mean actually, you know, voting on something that might piss off a significant number of their constituents. Much easier and less messy to leave this tar baby to the EEOC.

Yeah, it’s sort of dilapidated, if in a charmingly New England colonial way.

Oddly, the quadrangle of the University of Chicago, which was built as a modern imitation of Oxford at a university famous for its materialist doctrines, is actually one of the most aesthetically pleasing in the world. Better than the original even.

BTW Steve, can you recommend a browser setup for reading your articles on Taki? The website seems to have the most aggressive ad software I have seen on any site not originating from a back room in Kiev. It appears to be doing things like trying to rewrite the last browsing history page and website home page with an ad pop-up URL. I have tried IE, Chrome and Safari and can't read the site anymore on either my PC or iPad; The security measures lockup the page up indefinitely while they fight a desperate, silent, close quarters battle with the adbots.

After increasing browser crashes due to even one tab of Taki’s, I finally installed the NoScript extension specifically to read Taki’s. I’d be glad to support their advertisers, but it was just killing the browser every time. So they’re all shut off now.

P.S. I also use AdBlock Plus and Ghostery, but the NoScript is the one that seemed to make Taki’s readable.

The University of Chicago was a tremendous success quite quickly. Stanford took longer, but ultimately had the better location.

Cornell is also surprisingly high considering it was only founded 45 years earlier, and it was located way in the boonies before the era of easy transport. The other top ten schools of 1910 are all urban, with the arguable exception of Wisconsin (80 flat miles from Milwaukee vs. Cornell 200-odd rocky miles from NYC).

But yeah, U of Chicago went from not existing to 2nd in the nation in a mere 20 years. That’s gotta be some kind of ascendance record.

Cornell was in what was kind of the high tech Silicon Valley area of its era, with a lot of manufacturing due to all the waterfalls to power machinery.

When Stanford started, it raided Cornell for much of its faculty.

The U. of Chicago had Rockefeller money. Also, American universities were starting to imitate the German research university model at the end of the 19th Century. Perhaps it was quicker in that era to start from scratch with the German model than to laboriously change an old Anglo-style college?

Agree. The "Disparate Impact" pseudo-doctrine came from Griggs v. Duke Power. Ironically, the Court in Griggs was prosecuting the supposedly unnecessary use of high school diplomas as a requirement for employment.

So after the Court's (in)judicious meddling in every hiring decision in America, now college degrees are a requirement for almost everything. And the substance of the degrees has been hollowed out. And the cost has gone way, way up. And the academies have become expensive deadweight parasites.

Nice work, Supremes!

Shoulda left well enough alone.

Congress can change this anytime they want to. Of course, that would mean actually, you know, voting on something that might piss off a significant number of their constituents. Much easier and less messy to leave this tar baby to the EEOC.

Agree that Congress can change it in theory, since Griggs was based on a Title VII lawsuit. But is the resentment of their constituents really holding them back? How many Affirmative Action constituents does the average Republican congressman of the current GOP majority have, for instance? Compare to how many GOP constituents would be glad to reduce the Affirmative Action burden. Electorally, it should be a easy lay-up for the GOP majority.

There must be something else holding them back. As best as I can tell, it is simply the fear of the Democrat-Media-Industrial-Complex calling them "racist". The Left's control of the cultural heights still works.

There may be a slight legal excuse as well, in as much as there have been subsequent court decisions attempting to impart a patina of Constitutional--as opposed to statutory--legitimacy to Disparate Impact, which would take it out of the hands of the legislature. The attempted linkage is to the misconceived and debased 14th Amendment, natch.

As I've mentioned at length in other comments, contemporary progressivism in its many facets is essentially a Christian heresy with predominantly gnostic elements. The Woke long for recognition of their special enlightened status and its privileges.

This is another reason the Harry Potter books seems to have captured the progressive imagination.These books' strong traditional narrative and fortress-like setting create a 'safe space' for the esoteric expressiveness of the Very Special People who are called to Hogwarts and 'awakened' to their true, superior nature. Problems can be solved, literally, by magic.

Thanks!
Nice:

The Woke long for recognition of their special enlightened status and its privileges.

That 60/40 split would make for a good dating environment for males, if they could navigate the thicket of regulations. Maybe there is an app for that, customizable to each campus? For Harvard, press 1, for Suffolk Community, press 2.

Which goes a long way to explain the dominance of hook-ups, rather than dating.

Cornell is also surprisingly high considering it was only founded 45 years earlier, and it was located way in the boonies before the era of easy transport. The other top ten schools of 1910 are all urban, with the arguable exception of Wisconsin (80 flat miles from Milwaukee vs. Cornell 200-odd rocky miles from NYC).

But yeah, U of Chicago went from not existing to 2nd in the nation in a mere 20 years. That's gotta be some kind of ascendance record.

Cornell was in what was kind of the high tech Silicon Valley area of its era, with a lot of manufacturing due to all the waterfalls to power machinery.

When Stanford started, it raided Cornell for much of its faculty.

The U. of Chicago had Rockefeller money. Also, American universities were starting to imitate the German research university model at the end of the 19th Century. Perhaps it was quicker in that era to start from scratch with the German model than to laboriously change an old Anglo-style college?

As regards the change-Anglo-model vs. start-fresh-with-German-model, Chicago and surrounding regions also have more people of German and other northern continental descent than Anglos, as you know. So that might have something to do with it, even if the faculty were mostly imported. There were a lot of small research- practice-oriented colleges founded in the surrounding region (also Lutheran seminaries), but without the Rockefeller money, obviously.

Stanford's motto is unusual in that it is in German, which was probably considered the language of science and progress in the 1890s, rather than in Latin, Greek or Hebrew as with the more Oxbridge-y institutions of the East. A forebearer of mine was a professor of physics or something at one of the small independent colleges of the northern Midwest. He told me that at the time that he did his graduate work, reading comprehension of scientific German was a prerequisite.

Cornell's motto is in English, and pointedly prosaic: more of a 19th century advertising appeal than a motto, really.

Cornell was in what was kind of the high tech Silicon Valley area of its era, with a lot of manufacturing due to all the waterfalls to power machinery.

When Stanford started, it raided Cornell for much of its faculty.

The U. of Chicago had Rockefeller money. Also, American universities were starting to imitate the German research university model at the end of the 19th Century. Perhaps it was quicker in that era to start from scratch with the German model than to laboriously change an old Anglo-style college?

How do you know this stuff, man?

I’ve actually been to these places, yet I’m just learning this now…

Sheesh.

As regards the change-Anglo-model vs. start-fresh-with-German-model, Chicago and surrounding regions also have more people of German and other northern continental descent than Anglos, as you know. So that might have something to do with it, even if the faculty were mostly imported. There were a lot of small research- practice-oriented colleges founded in the surrounding region (also Lutheran seminaries), but without the Rockefeller money, obviously.

Stanford’s motto is unusual in that it is in German, which was probably considered the language of science and progress in the 1890s, rather than in Latin, Greek or Hebrew as with the more Oxbridge-y institutions of the East. A forebearer of mine was a professor of physics or something at one of the small independent colleges of the northern Midwest. He told me that at the time that he did his graduate work, reading comprehension of scientific German was a prerequisite.

Cornell’s motto is in English, and pointedly prosaic: more of a 19th century advertising appeal than a motto, really.

Congress can change this anytime they want to. Of course, that would mean actually, you know, voting on something that might piss off a significant number of their constituents. Much easier and less messy to leave this tar baby to the EEOC.

Agree that Congress can change it in theory, since Griggs was based on a Title VII lawsuit. But is the resentment of their constituents really holding them back? How many Affirmative Action constituents does the average Republican congressman of the current GOP majority have, for instance? Compare to how many GOP constituents would be glad to reduce the Affirmative Action burden. Electorally, it should be a easy lay-up for the GOP majority.

There must be something else holding them back. As best as I can tell, it is simply the fear of the Democrat-Media-Industrial-Complex calling them “racist”. The Left’s control of the cultural heights still works.

There may be a slight legal excuse as well, in as much as there have been subsequent court decisions attempting to impart a patina of Constitutional–as opposed to statutory–legitimacy to Disparate Impact, which would take it out of the hands of the legislature. The attempted linkage is to the misconceived and debased 14th Amendment, natch.

But where do they get the distinctly Nazi-sounding verbs "interrogate" and "intervene" as in "We will intervene in the Sudentenland to protect fellow Germans from the Slavic untermenschen"?

Is it via Heidegger -> Sartre -> to French postmodernists?

“Nazi-sounding verbs”?

Dammit, host. Do you have any idea the amount of text formatting I now have to do?

Nazi schmazi. It’s frogs all the way down, young man.

Till you get back to those Roman fasces-carriers and those Indo-European swastika-carvers.

interrogate (v.) late 15c., a back-formation from interrogation or else from Latin interrogatus, past participle of interrogare “to ask, question.” The Old French word was interroger (14c.) which yielded English interroge (late 15c.), now obsolete. Related: Interrogated; interrogating.

intervention (n.) early 15c., “intercession, intercessory prayer,” from Middle French intervention or directly from Late Latin interventionem (nominative interventio) “an interposing, a giving security,” literally “a coming between,” noun of action from past participle stem of Latin intervenire “to come between, interrupt,” from inter “between” (see inter-) + venire “to come,” from a suffixed form of PIE root *gwa- “to go, come.” Later “act of intervening” in any way; in 19c.-20c. often of international relations; by 1983 of interpersonal intrusions by friends or family meant to reform a life felt to be going wrong.

Contact Steve Sailer

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Steve Sailer

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The IRS has issued instructions regarding Bitcoins. I’m having Coinbase immediately turn all Bitcoins I receive into U.S. dollars and deposit them in my bank account. At the end of the year, Coinbase will presumably send me a 1099 form for filing my taxes.

Payments are not tax deductible.

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